1.7.7-Sarah1281
Brick!Club 1.7.7 The Traveller on his Arrival takes Precautions for Departure So after all the delays it’s this one kid at the end who finally got Valjean somewhere early. He is very thankful, naturally. Valjean is really optimistic about heading back home after this. Does he intend to confess and then make a break for it? He is trying his best to find the courthouse…except he doesn’t ask people who could actually tell him. His passive-aggressive little journey is pretty great. After getting lost, he reluctantly asks about the courthouse. He doesn’t really want to know, though. It’s a good thing, so to speak, that he asked or he’d have shown up at the courthouse and no one would be there because of yet more construction. It’s too late to get in but Valjean will try anyway. I wonder what he feels about the fact that someone or something is hell-bent on him not reaching the trial in time. It makes me kind of wonder if there was a divine intervention attempted but after awhile God just gives up and lets it happen. The guy who gives him directions is pretty friendly but so nosy! At least he asks instead of ruining his life sniffing around. But then he doesn’t really have the time to do that. I love how Valjean is just so focused on his own case that he doesn’t bother specifying and the lawyer assumes he’s talking about the most recent case that he was interested in. Communication is key, people. But he does try and finds out that it wasn’t actually the guy he thought. It was a woman who killed her kid so no one cared if it was premeditated and she has ‘penal servitude for life.’ I wonder what kind of hard labour women had. I wonder why, when Valjean asked, ‘Then his identity was established?’ (in a voice so weak that it was barely audible and hurting me) the lawyer responded to the fact that there was no identity to establish and not the fact that Valjean was clearly talking about a male when the murderer here was a female. We move right on from here but I want to know more! Why did that woman murder her baby? She interests me far more than Champmathieu. She needs her own chapter. Come on, she can take one of Waterloo’s; it really doesn’t need so many. Why can’t Valjean just come out and ask what case he’s interested in? He already said he doesn’t fear anyone recognizing him unless he says something. Poor Valjean. The guy he’s asking tells him that he’d send Champmathieu to the galleys just because of his face. Which Valjean shares. And he’s gotten his first taste of what he will be treated like again after so long of having been afforded respect the minute they believe he is really Valjean. So they can prove that Champmathieu was actually Valjean but can’t prove the damn apple case? Seriously? And the attorney general is a brilliant fellow who writes versus and always convicts everyone! That’s the problem with the mindset that if someone comes to trial they are guilty. If Champmathieu could write they’d probably have a signed confession from him. Madeleine is SO CLOSE to not having to do anything but the usher randomly mentions, though he does not think that Madeleine is a public official, that there are a few chairs open for public officials. So Madeleine doesn’t want to and mentally rants about it I’m sure but he gives his card to the usher to take to the president so that he might be admitted. I wonder what the president will take of the esteemed mayor of M-sur-M suddenly showing up here and wanting to sit in on this dull case. Commentary Serrende I wonder why, when Valjean asked, ‘Then his identity was established?’ (in a voice so weak that it was barely audible and hurting me) the lawyer responded to the fact that there was no identity to establish and not the fact that Valjean was clearly talking about a male when the murderer here was a female. - Oh, I can answer this one! It was not so clear in French, where the line is “L’identité a donc été constatée?” (‘The identity…etc’). Even if he had used a possessive instead, it would still have been ambiguous in French, as it doesn’t differentiate between possessors of different gender (i.e. both “his identity” and “her identity” in English turns into “''sa'' identité” in a literal French translation).